


A Quiet Friday Evening

by Lapsed_Scholar



Series: Season 9 Rewrites and Musings [6]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Autopsies, Domestic Fluff, Episode: s09e14 Scary Monsters, F/M, Humor, Scene rewrites, Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 06:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13265655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lapsed_Scholar/pseuds/Lapsed_Scholar
Summary: Mulder and Scully at home.





	A Quiet Friday Evening

**Author's Note:**

> For the squeamish and/or cat lovers: There is non-graphic depiction of a cat autopsy. If you made it through the episode, though, you'll be fine.
> 
> Gratitude, as always to "Inside the X."

_Mulder/Scully Residence_  
_Alexandria, VA_  
_February 8, 2002_  
_6:00 PM_

Dana Scully scrambles through the door in considerably more of a hurry than normal. The apartment, thankfully, smells like food.

“What’s for dinner? Can we start now? I’m starving.”

“Hello, darling; I love you too.” Mulder pushes himself up from the sofa where he has been watching William to the accompaniment of a basketball game. He scoops up the baby and ambles over to give Scully a kiss hello.

She cuts him a look. “I didn’t have lunch today because today—on my busiest teaching day—I was cornered in my office by Leyla Harrison from accounting. Remember her? She came down to Quantico to ask me about a case that she thought involved monsters. And then she showed me a series of very gory crime scene pictures and the accompanying autopsy report during the five minutes I have for lunch. And then I had to teach the rest of the day on an empty stomach.”

“ _Did_ it involve monsters?” The once-familiar perk of interest in his voice would be a welcome sign of his progressing recovery if she weren’t so distracted. As it is...

“ _Mulder_.” She tries not to whine; she really does.

He takes pity on her. “There’s chicken and noodles in the crockpot. You can start whenever... Don’t burn yourself!” He hastily adds the last exhortation when she goes directly for the crockpot with a fork.

~

_6:45 PM_

She has consumed enough food to only burn herself a little bit and to function again as a rational person. She tells Mulder about the report Leyla Harrison had shown her while they wrangle William into his pajamas.

“The coroner ruled that the victim had stabbed herself sixteen times.”

“Wait—you _don’t_   think that’s suspicious?”

“It is unusual. But I’ve seen similar cases before—it’s definitely possible. And the crux of what makes Agent Harrison think this is a case sounds like an unfortunate family dispute. The widowed father moves the son out to the middle of nowhere and denies the mother of the dead woman access. The boy, in confused grief, tells his grandmother that monsters killed his mother and his cat. The grandmother will believe that the father had something to do with the purported monsters because she’s searching for a reason why her daughter killed herself and a way to get her grandson back. It’s all very sad, but all very human.”

“...Are we sure that monsters _didn’t_ kill his mother and the cat?”

“ _Mulder_.” She’s exasperated, but she’s also missed this part of him—the willingness to believe—and she kisses his head fondly as she stands up to put William to bed.

She’s rocking and singing a quiet, off-key lullaby when the apartment phone rings, and Mulder answers. She listens idly to his half of the ensuing conversation.

“Hello?”

...

“She’s just putting the baby down.”

...

“Sixteen self-inflicted stab wounds? You wouldn’t happen to be talking to Leyla Harrison would you?”

Oh no. This has gone far enough. The last thing she needs is for Mulder to start encouraging this. She hurries out of the bedroom, grabs the phone, and gives Mulder the baby.

Without preamble, “You’re looking into the Conlon suicide, aren’t you?”

If Monica’s taken off-guard by the sudden change in conversation partner she covers it well. “Yeah. John and I are headed to Pennsylvania with Leyla, in fact. It sounds like you’re familiar with the case.”

She sighs wearily. She has to admit that she didn’t see this one coming, mostly because she thought that John Doggett, at least, wasn’t completely gullible. “Monica, there _is_ no case.”

“What do you mean, ‘there is no case’?”

“Agent Harrison already showed me the autopsy and the coroner’s notes over lunch. They’re unusual, but they’re hardly unprecedented. It’s entirely possible for such injuries to be self-inflicted, and I’ve seen it before. The boy’s story isn’t unusual for a child mourning his mother, and I assume that there is some degree of family strife between the father and the grandmother that would explain the rest of it. I’m sorry that you got pulled into this, Monica—but I really don’t think there’s a case here.”

“Right. Thanks, Dana.” Monica hangs up with her own sigh.

Scully puts the phone down and turns to look at Mulder, at whom she had been decidedly _not_ looking as he hovered over her shoulder (with William held against _his_ shoulder). She arches an eyebrow at him. “Yes, Mulder? Did you have something to add?” She’s baiting him. As exasperating as this whole mess of a so-called case is, a part of her would be delighted to spar with him over it.

His tone, however, is too quiet to be argumentative. “I just... What if the boy’s telling the truth? Are you really going to recommend dismissing what he says out of hand just because he’s young, and he experienced something traumatic?” She doesn’t miss the slight catch in his voice, the wistfulness of the man who wants to _be_ believed just as much as he wants to believe.

“He doesn’t have to be lying for his statement to not represent literal, physical reality, Mulder,” she says, gently. “And, besides, it appears that Monica and John _didn’t_ dismiss it, so they are going to have an eventful Friday evening driving to and from Pennsylvania. And I am going to have a quiet Friday evening here with you and William.” She takes the baby from him and gives him a soft kiss on the cheek.

_~_

_9:45 PM_

The enthusiastic banging at the door is even more unwelcome than such knocking at such an hour usually is. The initial knocks are followed, after an all-too brief pause of about ten seconds, by additional knocks of increasing impatience.

“Dana Scully?!” inquires a voice from outside. “I have the thing you’ve been waiting for!”

“Like _hell_ ,” mutters Mulder, giving the door a highly suspicious look while pulling his shirt back on. He turns around to go into the bedroom to retrieve a gun and bashes into Scully, who is emerging from the bedroom and tying a robe. She goes to the door and peers out the peephole.

“It’s a kid with a box,” she reports.

“What’s in the box?” There’s enough inflection of Brad Pitt to make the reference.

“That’s not funny, Mulder.”

“It wasn’t really supposed to be that much of a joke.” He’s grabbed the gun—can’t be too careful—but it’s currently pointed at the ground.

“Who is it?” Scully asks the door.

“It’s Gabe Rotter. I’m a friend of Leyla Harrison. I have that thing that you asked for.”

Scully narrows her eyes, but unchains the door and throws it open.

Gabe Rotter is maybe about twenty: tall, thin, and blighted with a gratingly obnoxious air of insouciance. He is holding an ominously ragged cardboard box out in front of him. The smell emanating from the box is unpromising.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” Scully is pissed. Mulder is pretty pissed, himself, but he lets her handle this one. The kid is somehow unbowed by her steely, unamused gaze. Mulder, himself, usually quails beneath that gaze.

“Hey, I just do what I’m told. Enjoy.” Gabe thrusts the box at her, and she takes a reflexive step back into Mulder. He steadies her and gives their guest a less-than-inviting look. He considers brandishing the gun, but reluctantly concludes that this isn’t a gun type of situation. He’s out of holsters at the moment, so he checks the safety and then stows it on the table by the door.

“What the hell is _that_?” Scully demands, eyeing the box with distaste.

“A dead cat,” replies the youth.

“Come again?”

“Yeah, his name's Spanky. Leyla said you're helping her out on a case and you needed it ASAP, so... hey, you're welcome.” The tone inexplicably implies that he’s expecting gratitude.

“Oh my God,” mutters Scully in what sounds like dawning horror, and Mulder’s starting to get a clearer picture of what this must be—the cat from the Conlon case—although how Agent Harrison got the idea that Scully actually wanted to see this cat in her home is honestly a mystery to him. He supposes that Agent Harrison did strike him as rather optimistically naïve in her grasp of the etiquette of field cases.

Scully breathes out through her nose and rubs her temples a little. “I am going to be exceptionally polite. Leave. Now. And take that thing with you.”

Gabe is indignant. “Do you have any idea what I went through to get this thing? I snuck onto the property where your perp used to live, and I dug up the whole thing looking for it.”

“I don’t care! _Leave_. _Now_.” She starts to close the door, which impels Gabe to launch himself into the apartment.

“ _Hey_.” Mulder speaks for the first time and steps out from behind Scully, towards Gabe—he’s as tall as this kid is and undoubtedly stronger. He doesn’t use physical intimidation often, but it seems appropriate in this situation.

It’s either that or the gun.

Gabe is as unmoved by Mulder’s objections as he was by Scully’s. He brandishes the box at them. “I’m _not_ leaving. Leyla said she'd go out with me only if I got you the cat, and damn it, I got it.” He opens the lid of the box, and Mulder reflexively peaks inside, gets a glimpse of tabby fur.

“I can’t imagine why she’d be reluctant to go out with _you_ ,” he mutters sourly.

He’s a bit sad for the cat. He’s also sad for Agent Harrison, who was clearly trying to put this Gabe off by sending him on a ridiculous, disgusting, pointless errand. It’s not her fault this kid can’t take a hint.

But Scully seems to see something in Spanky that Mulder does not because she squints and frowns, and then strides off across the living room toward the phone.

“Oh shit. Are you calling the cops on me?” Gabe only now seems to realize that barging into the homes of complete strangers and insisting they look at dead cats could be considered harassment of some kind.

“If only. God help me, but Agent Harrison might be on to something after all.” As she dials, she shoots Mulder a look that tells him that any and all gloating should take place without an audience, and would be better not taking place at all. His answering look is all innocence, but it’s a little bit smug.

Gabe observes this wordless conversation with a snort.

“So you’re Mulder and Scully, huh?” he asks.

“Last time I checked.”

“So are you two, like, together? _Together_ -together?”

“What gave it away? The fact that we live together, or the fact that our child is asleep in the bedroom right now, if you’ll kindly keep your voice down?”

Scully crosses back over to where they’re standing. “I can’t reach Reyes or Doggett. I left a message with the Somerset County sheriff.” She looks at the box containing the cat with a grim determination that Mulder doesn’t altogether like.

~

Mulder can’t be sure whether he’s beguiled or horrified by the fact that Scully is going to perform an autopsy on a very-dead cat on their dining table with their kitchen utensils. He _is_ sure that the existence of the internal debate suggests that there’s something deeply wrong with him.

“Remind me to never again ask you why the hell we need salad tongs,” he mutters. Scully hushes him, and he slumps himself unhappily on a nearby chair. He’s witnessed Scully perform enough autopsies to know that she will occasionally draft him into reluctant service. He is not going to look unless she makes him, though.

After an undetermined amount of time and following some truly repulsive noises, Scully seems to remember his existence. Unfortunately. “Mulder, look at this.”

“Do I have to?”

“ _Mulder_.”

“All right; I’m looking.” He is, heaven help him. He winces a little. “What, uh, what am I looking at?”

“This cat chewed through its own belly, right above the stomach. The wounds are in the same place where Tommy’s mother stabbed herself. You can see the damage here. But,” she maneuvers a little more with the salad tongs, “as you can see _here_ , there’s no sign on the stomach of any sort of external lesions or disease... I’m going to cut open the stomach next, and then we’ll be able to do a more thorough examination.”

Mulder is holding onto his dinner. Barely. “ _Shit_ , Scully. I do remember you lecturing me about bringing the work home, once upon a time, but you didn’t have to provide such a vivid demonstration of how unpleasant it can be.”

“Shut up, Mulder.” She grabs a knife. He looks away again.

The phone rings. Scully frowns.

“That must be the sheriff. Here, Mulder, hold this open and keep the abdominal wall spread.” She hands him the salad tongs before he can ask if maybe he can answer the phone instead. He stares after her in speechless misery.

He is going to buy new kitchen utensils. They are throwing all of these away, and absolutely nothing Scully can say about boiling water or exceedingly high temperatures or using the autoclave at work will convince him otherwise.

Gabe looks at him, evaluating. He looks back because it’s better than looking at the cat.

“You’re not all that hot.”

Mulder stares at him in annoyed bafflement. “You’re far too young for me, anyway.”

The kid glares at him and folds his arms. “Leyla won’t shut up about you. ‘Mulder is so smart; Mulder is so dreamy; Scully and Mulder did this; Mulder and Scully would have done that. Blah blah blah.’”

“Well, tonight, Mulder would have gone blissfully to bed with Scully, but then you brought a dead cat in a box to their doorstep and insisted on entry, and now they’re performing a tabletop cat-autopsy.”

“At least now Leyla will go out with me.”

“You have no idea how much that warms my heart.”

~

Scully finishes the autopsy with tiny stitches up the incision site. Mulder thinks she used a needle from his old sewing kit; he makes a mental note to buy a new one.

She’s quiet as she gently returns Spanky to his box. (Mulder makes another mental note that he’s going to be performing a cat burial in the near future.) As she cleans up, she’s frowning in that way that means she’s trying to sort out a problem in her head.

“Well, Doc?” he prompts her, as she’s scrubbing her arms.

“I didn’t find anything. Inside or outside of the stomach, or in any of the organs or tissues. And yet, cause of death was clearly self-inflicted stomach wounds. With that pattern of bite marks... it seems to me that the cat was trying to get at something in its stomach...to chew something out.”

Realization dawns. “The same as the woman who stabbed herself. The mother and the cat died from the same thing. They were desperately trying to get rid of something.”

“It certainly appears that way.” She frowns and bites her lip. “I mean, there wasn't any sign of it but it obviously caused a great deal of pain, whatever it was.”

Agent Harrison was, indeed, on to something. “Oh shit.”

She nods. “I’m going to try John and Monica again. And see if the sheriff has gotten up there to help them.”

~

She still can’t reach John or Monica, and now she can’t reach the sheriff, either; she can only leave messages. She doesn’t like any of this. She’s starting to suspect that John and Monica (and Leyla) are in some kind of terrible, horrible, _ridiculous_ peril.

She sighs, and turns to Mulder. “I actually think we’d better get up there—I can’t reach them, and I can’t reach the sheriff, and I’m starting to think that they’re in imminent danger. I’ll call my mom.”

Mulder nods soberly. A worried and serious look has supplanted nauseated annoyance. “I’m afraid you’re right.”

Gabe interjects, “Wait, where’re we going?”

“ _We_ are going to Fairhope, Pennsylvania. _You_ can go—”

“Mulder.” She doesn’t look up from her dialing.

Gabe is apparently not easily discouraged by overt unfriendliness. She thinks uncharitably that he’s likely used to it. “Why’re you calling your mom?”

“I’m going to beg her to come babysit.”

“I could babysit, if it means you’re going to go to rescue Leyla faster.”

“ _No_.” Mulder and Scully answer that proposal as one.

~

They take Gabe Rotter with them. Why the hell not? It’s not like they’re going to leave him in charge of their son.

* * *

_Conlon Residence_  
_Fairhope, PA_  
_February 9, 2002_  
_3:00 AM_

Endlessly multiplying cockroaches that eat your stomach and can only be stopped by resolute disbelief in the face of all apparent sensory evidence? Yeah, he’s glad he sat this one out.

He argues with Scully on the way home about whether or not this case counts as being caused by monsters.

“I can’t help thinking that you keep moving the definition, Scully. As soon as you see something previously unknown to science, you categorize it as something scientific, and then you can say that it didn’t actually have a mysterious cause at all.”

“That’s how science works, Mulder.”

“So even if I’m right, you’re right?”

“You _weren’t_ right. It wasn’t a boy who was being terrorized by monsters with the complicity of his father. It was a boy who was somehow...causing vivid hallucinations to manifest in the people surrounding him. Any actual harm was caused by the victims’ reactions to the hallucinations—and inflicted through entirely explainable means.”

“You’re right, Scully. That’s perfectly within the commonly accepted definition of normal.”

“Monsters still don’t exist.”

* * *

_X-Files Office_  
_Basement, J. Edgar Hoover Building_  
_Washington, DC_  
_February 11, 2002_  
_1:30 PM_

Scully is seated beside Mulder on top of one of the tables. She swings her legs a little and feels quite frankly happy. Maybe the good mood is contagious: Leyla Harrison is standing in the middle of the room, looking around in a kind of dreamy happiness.

“So this is where the magic happened, huh?” Gabe strolls up next to Leyla, who does not look repulsed. Scully supposes there is no accounting for taste.

“ _Here_? Uh, well, not all _that_ often here, really only—” Mulder sounds taken aback, and he’s taken that comment _entirely_ the wrong way, and Scully hurriedly stops his babbling indiscretion with an elbow to the ribs.

Leyla’s star-struck enough that she doesn’t notice. Thankfully. “It still happens,” she says with a smile. “I’m happy it’s in good hands.”

“I am, too,” Scully smiles back.

Doggett and Reyes come in, then, as if summoned. They provide updates on the boy’s condition at the psych center, and Scully allows her mind to wander a bit. When she comes back to the present, Leyla is extolling the virtues of John, who looks a little bit embarrassed.

“I really do have to commend you, Agent Doggett. You solved this case. If it weren't for you...I don't even like to think what would have happened. I have to say, it's clear to me now that you were better-equipped for this challenge than even Agent Mulder would have been. Absolutely. I mean, your lack of imagination saved our lives.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You know, I, for one, have never denied the usefulness of a good skeptic to the X-Files office,” Mulder puts in.

“ _Never_?” Scully raises her eyebrow at him skeptically.

He smiles at her and kisses the back of her hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there, Season 11. I'm just going to keep rewriting bits and pieces of Season 9.


End file.
